Mervyn Sequeira is a nature photographer based out of Ontario. Recently he posted an incredibly timely series of pictures on his Instagram @msequeiraphotography of a Canada Goose fighting with an American Bald Eagle.
Here’s Mervyn’s caption:
Raptors play a role in keeping numbers in check and taking out the sick and weak. Not often does one see our apex raptor, the American Bald Eagle attempting to take down a Canada Goose.
For close to twenty minutes, one attacked and the other desperately defended. Finally, the eagle gave up, the goose was spared..
Two unhappy sides to this encounter-
1) Despite putting up a fight, the goose had all the symptoms of Avian Influenza . It survived the encounter with the eagle but would certainly soon succumb to the virus, the injuries and the cold.
2) The eagles, while doing their job, contract the virus from infected waterfowl like this one. In the last two years, we have lost many Bald eagles to the virus.
Some more shots of that encounter.
After twenty minutes of this, when it looked like it was all over for the goose, the eagle gave up!
